robert levinson, senior defense analyst for bloomberg government talks about spending by congressional district. 7:00 and eastern on c-span. ♪ host: good morning, everyone. it is tuesday, march 5. house republicans are introducing the bill they want to vote on on thursday to keep sequestration in place, avoiding a government shutdown. if it passes, the senate will then have to decide whether to take it up. president obama yesterday announced three more picks for open posts, epa administrator, energy secretary, and budget chief. the new cabinet, according to "the washington post," said the

new cabinet will play a bigger role in the president's second term. we will take your calls in a moment. for republicans, 202-585-3881. for democrats, 202-585-3880. for independents, 202-585-3882. send us a tweet, twitter.com/c- spanwj. or post your comments on facebook.com/c-span. you can also e mail us, journal@c-span.org. here is the front page story this morning -- "president obama, facing a limited amount of time."

host: president obama, wanting to rely on his cabinet more in his second term.

your take on that this morning? you are dialing in now. more from "the washington post." id says "added influence." -- it says "added influence." host: "the washington post" also reported that for his inner cabinet, the top positions at treasury and justice, obama has tapped loyalists who have been with him since his first days in office, but for the outer cabinet he has elected relative strangers." here is president obama

yesterday talking about his nominee for top budget chief, sylvia matthews burr well. [video clip] >> in the 1990's, when she was 19 -- [laughter] she served under jack lew as deputy director of omb for the team that presided over three budget surpluses in a row. later she held the gates foundation grow into a global face for good and help the bloomberg foundation expand into charitable work. as the granddaughter of greek immigrants, she understands that when we put together a budget it is not just to make the big numbers add up, it is to reunite the agents of economic growth in this country. ladders of opportunity for anyone willing to climb them. sylvia loves to talk about her

parents. her mom is here today. grew up in west virginia, the values that they instilled in her as educators. i think that that reflects everything that we see together. i am confident. those values are especially important for her to remember now. >> -- host: president obama, yesterday, talking about his pick for omb. jamie, indianapolis. what are your thoughts? caller: i think that's partially the opportunity -- the tone coming from the white house is a lot different from the first term, which shows that he is really willing to engage congress in a way in which they had been trying to obstruct him. a lot of people in the cabinet,

like hegel, they had to face the problems in getting the appointed to the job. unlike any other president in history, he is dealing with a lot of obstruction from the opposition. he needs a cabinet willing to extend that pressure. no one is working with the administration and i am glad we are going in the direction we are consider where we were going when we got there. host: you think it is ok for the president to try to go around congress and execute his policy through executive action? caller: the congress is stopping everything he does in its tracks.

moving from one crisis to the next. at some point the american people will not stand for this obstruction and filibustering. no one is working with him and in some situations he is going to have to do that and the american public understands why. unlike the press, who do not tell it like it is, we know what is going on. host: this is from facebook -- host: those of some of the comments from our facebook page. you can also send us a tweet journal@c-span.org, -- tweet,

twitter.com/c-spanwj journal@c- .pan.o caller: i think it is great that he is appointing people that do not necessarily have an side connections in washington. we are suffering right now because we have foreign influences, like the israel lobby. we need people in there that are not really biased by lobbyists. host: you say that they are outsiders. this is from ""the wall street journal, closed -- this is from "the wall street journal," this morning.

caller: they are qualified people and they definitely have some experience. i do not see any of the criticism against them to be valid. i am happy to see them in their. i am not sure about the brennan appointment. i guess he has not been voted in yet and i do not want to see him in there. he has dual citizenship with israel and we end up compromising ourselves. host: where did you get that information about him? caller: i cannot say for sure about that, i do not know for sure, but we wind up being to compromise. he is too involved in the drone program, for example. we have got these drones over their bombing innocent people

lots of times. they are not being honest about the casualties there. i am just not a supporter brennan, i am afraid. but everyone else. host: "the washington times," has more on the brennan nomination. "three of the senators used cia votes as leverage."

host xhosa some of the questions that those three senators -- host: those are some of the questions that those three senators have. the committee in the senate is expected to vote on his nomination. we are talking about president obama's cabinets for his second term and what you think this morning about "the washington post," and the article about the cabinet playing a bigger role.

caller: good morning. let me start by saying that when president obama was elected, all the things he had to go through, i have a hard time understanding -- we see what is going on. people claim we are not paying attention and we do not know. but it is the republican party that is standing in the way of him. people, he is not helping one group, one race of people. this man, this president is helping all people. i do not understand how republicans -- and say that more republicans get food stamps than blacks. to turn this around and say that it is the american people and the black people, it is always a guess a way to pull us apart from each other right when everyone is in this together.

when we go to war, we do not fight separate. we do not fight republicans and democrats. something is wrong when we see him trying to help everyone, i do not care what party you are in, you let your representatives fight against your way of thinking, ok? it is about what is best for everyone. if it was one particular people he was trying to help, that would be understandable, but we are out here and even though we do not get cold all the time, we see what is happening. we see what is going on. we will not be fooled by the media. you know, sometimes when i look at "morning joe," and see how they go on, those people do not need child care, they do not need food stamps, they do not need insurance because they have

got it. they sit around the table and they laugh and kind of joke about things that sometimes it is best not to talk about, things going on in your country, because other people feel it as well. host: ok, bill, independent caller. what do you make of this? the executive actions the president can take to get around congress? caller: i wish he would start becoming our leader instead of being a divisive politician. he split the nation in half from those who have and those who have not. he has shown no leadership whatsoever on this sequestration. he could have delegated to the different agencies that they could spend the money the way that they wanted instead of having them forced to do cuts in areas. i think that history will prove that this president was one of the worst leaders we ever had.

i am sick and tired of hearing people call in and saying that the republicans are a party of no and that they do not pass anything he wants. that is ridiculous. if the people would really watch the news and listen, they would understand that we are one nation under god. we are not the have and have- nots. it is ridiculous. host: "epa issues tougher controls on climate." that is the headline this morning about the environmental protection agency.

host: here is what the president had to say about gene mccarthy. [video clip] >> he would not know about its to talk to her -- he would not know it to talk to her, but she is from boston. [laughter] as the top environmental official in massachusetts and connecticut, she helped to

expand programs that promoted renewable energy. as assistant administrator she is focused on practical, cost- effective ways to keep our air clean and our economy growing. she has earned a reputation as a straight shooter and welcomes different points of views, i am confident that she will do an outstanding job. these two over here, they are going to be making sure that we are investing american energy and doing everything that we can to combat the threat of climate change, that we will be creating jobs and economic opportunity in the first place. they will be a great team. these are my top priorities going forward. host: that was president obama, talking about gene mccarthy. she also worked for governor romney at the state level as

well. so, lots in the papers this morning about the president's cabinet. he held his first cabinet meeting of his second term yesterday after making the announcement. "the washington post," reporting this morning on the front page that officials at the white house are outlining an ambitious agenda and the president is hoping that the cabinet he is pushing together will help to -- will help to push forward different policy initiatives. marilyn, democratic caller, hello. your thoughts? caller: i think that whoever he chooses should be ok. no worse or better than what ever else is going on. i hope they are not beholden to the coke brothers or in bed with grover norquist or anything like that. then they should do great. as far as what the president is trying to do, he is trying to put the american people the john

boehner keeps talking about, time for the american people to go downtown and protest and i am going to start organizing that in my neighborhood. we are tired of hearing what is going on, tired of allies. i love c-span, but i want you to hold people to their allies. do not let them call up and lie, make them explain where they get the live from. let them know that they get it from fox, cable -- news. -- non-news. we do not want a sequester. we do not need it. it has been put out there that it is the president's fault, it is john boehner. if the president says no to anything -- he does not do anything. how was closing a post office going to create jobs? host: if republicans have their

way they would like to keep the sequester in place but give the military more flexibility by putting forth a bill that they outlined yesterday, coming to the floor for a vote on thursday. caller: too little, too late. host: that would avoid a government shutdown. caller: that would be nice, but they will then kicked the can down the road for the next cliffhanger. they need to get together with the democratic party and fix what is wrong. we are tired of the talking. if they spend more time working, what a wonderful world but have. host: the house committee is going to take up that legislation we were talking about. go to c-span.org if you are interested. independent line, rhode island, you are next.

caller: i hope you give the time that you gave the uninformed callers to you have had. i will tell you something, they want to put the republicans down? the people that pay taxes in this country have to stop supporting the people who are costing this country a fortune. this president started a class war in this country that is so long, trying to divide people, very divisive. minorities the call, it always gets back to racism. i am so sick of taking care of people, it is disgusting. host: all right. about the legislation we just told you about, a roll call writer is on the phone with the smell to give us more information. neil, what does this legislation do or when it comes to sequester? caller: it is a $982 billion,

roughly, depending on how you count at, a package that will keep the government funded for the rest of the fiscal year, through september 30. it is a continuing resolution for the most part, keeping government programs running at basically the same levels that they have been running at for the last year or so, except as you have pointed out, i am sure, that it puts the defense department and department of veterans affairs, they have both of their full fiscal 2013 spending bills contained within the package, which means that at least in theory it blocks -- blunts the impact of the sequestered there, because it reprogram is money and move things around in ways that

lawmakers and presumably in conversations with the pentagon and veterans affairs, so that they can cut things that they would actually like to cut. one of the troubles with having a sequestered that is tied to a continuing resolution is that the cr's are generally in flexible vehicles in their own right. programs that everyone agrees they want to cut keep running, even though no one wants them anymore. looking at their defense in va, it would have much better treatment in terms of how they spend their money compared to the rest of the government. host: the house is slated to vote on this on thursday. does it pass? caller: it looks like this passes the house. the question becomes -- then

what happens? obviously, the house is sending this over as a vehicle for the senate's with negotiations in a way a house-senate will deal with this as early as next week. there they are talking about the possibility, and i stress possibility, of trying had a couple of more departments and agencies to the list, like defense and va, counting their full spending bills included. there are other bills that if you talk to the senate, democrats and republicans, they will say that it is worth negotiating with the house for what was essentially completed around december earlier this year. so, you know, the department of commerce, the justice department, and others,

agriculture, where they think they have an agreement in hand. there may be some effort to put that back in. of course that could set up a disagreement with the house going forward and we could have another one of those stalemates. host: all right, so, what happens if there is a stalemate? caller: if it turns out that we get into a situation where the senate passes something that is not the bill that the house and appears on track to pass on thursday, and i should say that there is some potential that the timing of the house passage could flip because of this winter storm that is coming. there has already been some chatter that the republican schedule could change. but whenever the house passes it, if the senate passes something else we would be back in one of those situations and

-- which we find ourselves in so often, when the house and senate have to come to a negotiated compromise on how to actually make the bill function, which departments to fund fully and which ones operate under a cr. it might be more likely in fact that the senate tries to do something else. we have seen it sometimes where the senate tries to do something else and they fail and ultimately passed the house bill. that is possible as well. everyone of sides agree is that they do not want to go down the road of government shutdown. host: thank you for your time, sir. caller: thank you. host: some sequester headlines from this morning, this is from "the wall street journal." "obama tries to sway rank-and- file gop, calling them up individually rather than dealing with gop leaders."

host: also next to that, the airline -- headline "airports see very few problems when it comes to sequester." that is the headline from "the wall street journal," this morning about the sequestered. here is the "money section." "customs delay, according to a homeland security department." recovered a political breakfast yesterday with the courage -- the current leader of the department homeland security, in

case you're interested. "400 jobs posted yesterday by 6:00 p.m.," the first weekday of the sequestered taking place. we will go to todd in gaithersburg, maryland. republican caller, we're talking about the president's second term in this cabinet. what do you think of the washington post saying that he is calling on them for bolder action? caller: i just wanted to mention that i did not get my mail until 8:30 at blight last night and i hope it was not related to the -- at 8:30 at night last night and i hoped it was not related to the sequestered. i think that it comes down to a meeting of leaders that can work together and collaborate. collaborate, cooperate, those of the things we need to see going

forward. folks coming up with out of the box thinking and ideas. i would like to throw a couple of things out there. there is a lot of talk that -- over climate change, so if we know about the weather getting a lot more violent, what are we doing to help our own country respond to everything that we are seeing with all of these tornadoes and hurricanes? why not create our own domestic response force so that folks have an opportunity not only to serve overseas but in their own country, rebuilding communities after we have major storm events. a way to not only fund a program but create the offset. secondly, let's take a look at the number of people coming into the country because they want to

take the advantage of what we have to offer. when we talk about social security and medicare and the tax rate, why not put those people in at a higher tax rate as a fee for them to come to this country? host: jeff, washington d.c., independent caller. caller: i would like to say that it is refreshing to hear a republican caller with an objective and levelheaded point of view like the last one, not strictly ideological. i am with both of the last two female callers the call in. basically, the 10 questions -- all, it is another form of extortion that folks have been running against the

president's administration since the day he got in there. if you do not want to approve it, so be it. no. 2, the bush tax cuts were scheduled to expire and will wonder why folks are still trying to treat this like it was some kind of compromise. they should have expired. i would just like to say that the class warfare that that guy called about splitting the country, class warfare has been around for years and decades. we need to get off of that. we need to work towards trying to mend the rift between the classes. host: all right, john. the headline from "usa today," which we just showed you, "cabinet picks may lull university predicts."

-- diversity critics." "obama has also nominated sally jewell, president and ceo of rei to be his next interior secretary. a seventh woman, rebecca plank, served as the acting commerce secretary on his first team." also in the papers this morning, "hispanic groups are waiting for president obama to fill more of his cabinet with hispanic officials. some saying they are disappointed so far with the picks they have seen." in "the new york times," this

morning about what this new energy secretary and epa and the straight face, this is what their rights -- -- what they write --

host: here is president obama yesterday on his nomination of mr. moniz to head the energy department. [video clip] >> a physicist by training, serving as undersecretary under president clinton, since then he has directed the mit energy initiative, bringing together prominent thinkers to bring together the technologies that will lead us to more energy independence and new jobs. most importantly, he knows that we can produce more energy for our growing economy while still taking care of our air, water, and climate. i could not be more pleased to have him join us. he will be joined in that effort by my nominee to lead the environmental protection agency. host: we are talking about the president's second term and his

cabinet. "the washington post," reporting this morning "he wants bigger roles for his second cabinet, pushing his agenda for the next four years." in other news this morning, the front page of "the star- ledger," in new jersey, "i was paid to defame senator melendez." documents that were put up regarding these escorts, she says that she was paid to do so. the story also made "the miami herald," this morning. their front page, "alleges prosecutor -- prostitute recants story." in "the denver post," "lawmakers sparked for -- spar for seven

rounds." "kelly expressed support for house bill 1229 in the colorado legislature." that is the front page of "the denver post," this morning. from arizona, "the governor still confident about the budget." some leaders are wary in that state. courtesy of the newseum, here in washington. william, republican caller. what do you make of the president's cabinet picks? caller: good morning. i think he has done a great job and picked some good people, giving them bigger roles. host: what do you mean? caller: it is important that he puts the people that he wants in his administration.

the republicans will fight him on everything, that is what they do. this is not the same party and voted for 10 years ago. the republican party has just gotten ridiculous. host: did you vote for president obama in 2012? caller: yes, i did. host: 2008? caller: i did not. but look at 2012, they gave us romney. to me he was a fake. host: james, hello. james, good morning. you are on the air. go ahead. caller: ok. i think that the man who just called in, you just finished taking his call, he said everything i would like to say and that i feel. i have no problems with president obama's administration or how he has governed.

he has done great things. my only question, i would question the radical sikh party maniacs in congress. thank you. host: jay, hello. kansas, republican caller. good morning. caller: [indiscernible] borrowing from mitt romney's folder. all of these picks come from northeastern university. host: why is that a problem? caller: they do not go to alabama to find their picks. host: why is that important to you? we lost him. illinois, independent caller, hello. caller: it has been a long time, honey. i called a few years back and

told you not to vote for bush. let's get back to the same thing, cabinet members as well. i am sure he made some good choices for himself, but on the other hand, why are they not doing the business of the data that is important, like putting an import tax on all of this shipping from overseas to our country. that is why we are out of work. back down to something that our forefathers gave us, the consumption tax. one tax only and you will see changes. you do that and those american companies that went overseas will be coming back here to put people back to work. the other thing is we're spending $1 trillion, $100 billion on senseless wars. stop it. bring the troops home. there is no reason. it is senseless. all this war hague, my god,

there are people in this country that do not have food and we are giving billions to a foreign country? let's start with our own country right now. host: we will leave it there. political headlines this morning, "an unexpected proposal." this is from "the washington post." host: also in politics, the front page of "usa." -- usa today." "jeb bush, coming out with a new book." that is the front page of "usa

today," this morning. on foreign policy news, john kerry stirs debate on u.s. funds for egypt. some question the $250 million going to the muslim brotherhood. several lawmakers have called for a halt of u.s. assistance to egypt, redirecting the $1.3 billion in military aid that washington sends to cairo each year. from "the washington times," these latest comments on the conflict in syria. also this morning, some stories on china. "a deal is reached on sanctions," from "the wall street journal." "the property bubble is a key concern. of the front page of "the financial times," "china takes

over biggest spot as oil importer." a couple of obituaries for you on history. dining at age 93, "the last known survivor -- dying at age 93, "the last non surviving member host: also this morning, "major thomas griffin, 96, in the air raid on japan four months after the raid on poor -- raid on pearl harbor, dying at age 96."

host: we have a couple of minutes left, a couple of more phone calls, if we can, on the bigger role for the president's cabinet in the second turn. dana, good morning. caller: i have a problem with my brother, barack obama. i wish that he would elect some more brothers to his cabinet. his father was a brother, a negro american, and we need more diversity for people that come from the street and can recognize, as far as money problems. host: all right. victor, florida, go ahead. caller: i would like to see the new energy secretary put in the plan that was passed by t. boone pickens.

that plan would put millions of people back to work in the energy industry, expanding shell of gas, getting this country out of the recession we are in. if they do that, we will get on the right track. only growth will get us out of this mess. host: coming up, we will talk to two members of congress. first, ken murphy, talking to him about mental health in this country and the state of care on the federal level. and then representative jim himes, talking to us about [indiscernible] we will be right back. ♪

[video clip] >> one of the things that all right -- always grabbed me was of import, the paragraph in the hope report from the focus group where mark k. actually encapsulated it pretty well, where he said "i do not do research because i know that charities are willing to do some good. where i put my time is into a

microwave. it does not echo with donors. part of my message would be a plea to the donor commission, ball charities are not alike. we have got to give money to the best in the breed so that they survive and that the others do not. >> can stern looks of the world of nonprofits on "afterwards, close was this weekend on c-span 2. host: a republican from pennsylvania, co-chair of the mental health caucus and a member of the house committee of oversight and investigation, serving his sixth term, representing the eighth district of pennsylvania. we are here to talk about

federal mental health programs. let's begin with how you define mental illness. guest: according to the diagnostic terminology and the technical statistical manuals. the key is understanding that mental illness is a genuine diagnosable and treatable condition. more and more people are finding that there is a neurological base. a study cannot a few weeks ago saying that several of the diagnoses, like schizophrenia, attention disorder, bipolar, have common genetic links. we are learning more and more about the full-time, although i must admit that the research here is far behind other areas. we have a long way to go. you can have a genetic type and except medication specifically

for that type. my hope is that in the near future we are able to do that with other illnesses as well, targeting medication and treatment specifically. host: user as -- you served in this position for years. what are other routes? caller: there is the department of defense and the federal money going to staves, research dollars for mental health. substance abuse and mental health. there are a lot of other things there. one of the things we're doing to the subcommittee is an audit of every single federal dollar, where it comes from and where it goes. we do not know that yet and one of the things i consider extremely important is to find

out how much really gets down to the patient level. to me it is a non-effective use of taxpayer dollars if we find a lot of programs that are not found to help with treatment. parents and communities are deeply concerned about not being able to treat people with disorders. host: your oversight subcommittee has a hearing that c-span will be covering. raise the curtain, what is happening at the hearing? guest: this is after new town. the issue here is to members of congress under regius for members of congress to hear from those family members their thoughts -- their issues with mental health regulation and violence. but there will be three parents there, one set whose son committed suicide, another whose son made threats to the extent that had to locked car

and hide the knives. another family whose son wrote a book called "crazy." sadly, so much has happened with mental illness over the years, it has been a source of jokes, embarrassment, and stigma. people do not want to talk about it. my sense is that sometimes they just throw money at the programs. thinking that because they did something, it must to the right thing, but many times it maintains stigma with very weak levels of research. look at something like cancer. host: weak levels of research? caller: -- guest: research. cancer, $500 million per year. that is important.

but $100 million for mental health? by comparison, 38,000 suicides per year. on top of that, some automobile accidents related to suicide. there is a wide range where we are not addressing this problem. host: do you agree with this "the washington post," headline this morning regarding the fallout of cuts over sequestration if kept in place? guest: i think that what we can do, one of the reasons we have called for this, is where does the money go? rural communities, their access is so low, in urban areas you could get 50% of was available to doctors. only 10% of the need is there. not providing the treatment is a

problem. look at areas and programs -- for example, the substance abuse and mental health services agency, i often question what they're doing. why are we spending money on a painting of people sitting on a rock? i do not get it. why not spend money on -- wiry spending money on staff videos -- why are we spending money on staff videos? i do not get that. get the money back to where it needs to be, treating patients, or cut it out of your budget, or send it to a budget where it can be helpful. the national institutes of health budgeted $30 billion for year. host: according to the substance abuse and mental health administration, its total budget was $3.4 million.

children's mental health services, $121,000. mental health block grants, $420,000. do you see the difference between the total budget and what they are spending going to the states for mental health services? is that not adequate? guest: that amount of money going for children's services and to the states, that is not adequate. you look at the amount of money that has been spent on that, that could cover one large city. it is simply not appropriate. going to these agencies to find out where it is, look at these things, agencies with services, the department of defense is spending a lot of money on their suicide programs.

there is an even higher rate of suicide in families that need to be under scrutiny. why is it so little of all the money they have? and where does that money go? we do not have enough providers. especially with children. the new hear from these parents that said they have a 12-year- old or 13-year-old already out of control. when i wrote about this years ago calling a "the angry child ," apparently that they were scared to death of their child. the had a 4-year-old who as i was talking to the parents, he was smashing into the wall. this is the level that some parents live with. their anger, their rage is so out of control the parents do not know what to do.

host: how about the numbers? adults mental-health -- adult mental health in the united states, abuse disorder, a 0.5 million have had serious thoughts of suicide -- 8.5 million have had serious thoughts of suicide. children, 2 million had major depressive episodes. 3 million per year need counseling during treatment. mental health services and oppression. what resources do adults and children have? guest: 20% of any given people in the year have a diagnosable disorder. it can be about acute anxiety. in most cases they may not be able to get [indiscernible] here is a frightening statistic, from the time that it appears to

the time the people start cutting health -- getting help, the average wait is that is for multiple reasons. sometimes the people do not recognize that the have the symptoms of. sometimes they try to get access and cannot. sometimes they hold out and say it is not so bad. that range goes up to three years in wait time. not getting those services. host: want to get some callers involved, but real quick, what are warning signs? guest: depression getting in the way of everyday functions and anxieties. sometimes a child might be socially very awkward, not just shy, but socially very awkward. does not get it, the former emotional bonds with other people. -- does not form emotional bonds with other people.

hearing voices. any of those are reasons to start getting talk, dr.. host: the first phone call comes from washington, d.c. democratic caller. caller: can you hear me? host: weekend. caller: thank you so much for having me. i am a little bit concerned. there are no panelists were people with my history who can talk about this issue from their own perspective. i am one of those people who has qualified as having a severe mental illness. i was able to go to law school and establish it for myself. in terms of having other views on the panel, it could leave --

lead to an increase in stigma. my other point is that the way that we're looking at mental health services from the perspective of inpatient hospitalization, they have been looking at community-based care. host: let's let the congressman reply. guest: some people in america believe in such things as the pure services -- pierre services. they work very well with alcohol and -- peer services. they were very hat -- very well with alcohol and drug abuse. severe violence, there is high risk. the other reason that we're not having someone with severe mental illness on a panel, that

is not what this panel is about. this is about telling congress people what it is like for families. that is important. i want members of congress the year from parents. since we are talking about severe mental illness that relates to violence, i will not bring someone out of prison to talk about what they kill people. we are not going to do that. that is a dangerous situation. it is also important to understand that there can be very moving stories from parents. these people have to make decisions for their teenage kids. remember, the folks that have committed these massive crimes, generally their symptoms start between 14 and 25. at that young age we are all acknowledging as parents that we do not think that a child that age can make rational decisions for themselves. they cannot have a bank account or drive a car.

what happens is, for example, in the state of pennsylvania, they are allowed to make a decision about whether they're forced to retreat in. -- treatment. i do not think that a 14-year- old is capable of making that decision, let alone a 14-year- old with severe mental illness. they do not have the kind of inside,. . i have ethical obligations not to do harm to someone. a person with severe mental illness -- i will not do something that will set them off. it is extremely important. i understand people have made great strides with this.

stories.about parents' host: on twitter. guest: i do not have the exact statistics. i just read an article -- there is a severe shortage of psychologists and psychiatrists . males that work with children, a high shortage. perhaps only one psychiatrist nts.800, 900 patie there is a severe shortage. a lot of times they recognize

the reimbursement rates are slow. we have a shortage even on the federal level. we required insurance companies to provide insurance. we're still waiting for the regulations. we have been waiting quite sure years. i ask the administration to advance this so we could do more. caller: hi. i want to tell you about something. i spent four and half years in vietnam. we can back, all i had was people calling us baby killers. and iw i'm 64 years old think back on my past.

i do not like president obama. i do not like him. i just got a check in the mail for $10,000. how can you not like somebody like that? guest: i'm not sure what you're asking. i work also in the navy at walter reed in bethesda, soldiers and veterans. there have been things in a news suggesting some may be prone to violence. there was a recent shooting of a navy seal. we must understand mental illness so much. we toss these terms around.

most people with mental illness are not dangerous. they cannot violent. -- they are not valid. these diagnostic labels are keys, not locks. we have to make sure that it is in just sitting down and talking. many of those treatments are not helpful. working with someone of a severe disorder and having them be in touch with their feelings is more of a problem. cognitive behavior therapy where you're working with somebody to understand how to control their thought processes and that is

much more effective. but it is treatable. if you have some of these problems, get help. they are treatable. host: does therapy along with prescription drugs make it a better outcome? do they complement each other? guest: we still have a ways to go in understanding medication. we will get there. when hospitals had discoveries of thorazine and other things, in many cases people's symptoms began to subside. it does help. over 70% of psychotropic drugs

are prescribed by nine psychiatrists. appropriate. you need somebody who'll be part of understanding this field. i do not deliver babies or do brain surgery. it is a specialty that you are trained for. all those things are important. sometimes people are on a chain of medications. oftentimes they are mismanaged. they may be starting one. sometimes people feel frustrated that medications are not working. maybe it has not been managed. it said in at

dismissing them -- instead of dismissing them. caller: what is the federal government ever done to make it to where people will want to get into the psychologist field? all the congress and the president's keep doing is cutting the paid to doctors. it is damage after damage after damage. guest: it is a concern with regard to how things have been managed. we have tried to make some changes. i worked on a bill to have medicare pay rates come up.

when you have a chronic illness, you are twice as likely to have a mental disorder, too. anxiety, depression. it affects a number of things. so what my concern was the reimbursement rate was so low that a lot of seniors or going without. we're doing some of that. all of these things cost money. the federal government has gone into lots of different areas. is this a legitimate area for the affair government to be involved? it is a public health concern. , theyple don't get help

show up somewhere else -- emergency rooms, police stations. they have flooded our jails. do you want to know how much help they are getting? very little. host: the general public, if they'd like to talk to a psychologist, does insurance cover that visit? guest: yes, in most cases. we don't know what the regulations are yet. host: ellen on twitter asks this. guest: she is right on target.

that is why we are doing this audit. we need to find out. the government is providing some funds and it has to get to the patients. where does the government need to cut? some programs may need to be expanded. host: gloria in orlando, florida. caller: i'm living in orlando, florida. i spent 12 years working for a mental health program in california. i have a son diagnosed with a severe mental else when he was 18 years old. we're here in florida because of

him. my concern is that there are a lot of families who tried to get help. they cannot get help. you have to be a danger in order to get someone into treatment who doesn't understand they need treatment. there are very few resources for people. they do not get to see a doctor very often to get their medications regulated correctly. i do not believe the federal money is being well used in the states. the states giving it to counties. the involuntary treatment laws need to be the same for people to get the help they need.

guest: it is a sad and tragic mess. she had to move to another state to get some help. i've seen families moved to different counties. it should not be that tough. this is not the fault of the individual. we're finding more about the basis of mental illness. we have to find how we make sure those dollars get into the various -- 50 different states and 50 different laws. that has to do with a decision about whether someone can own or purchase a firearm. you have states that say a

person is mentally ill to this level. you can have a situation where someone can have a severe mental illness but decides when police picked them up -- if that person signs themselves in, they can still purchase a firearm. another person may have depression but not severe danger. once there signed in -- once they are signed in, their rights to purchase a firearm are terminated. it is a mess in terms of how we look at things. beds.'t have enough

we're down to maybe 20% of our need. we don't have enough. there are outpatient services. it is a severe problem. host: republicans are talking about tightening up laws. guest: i am very concerned. i can reduce some statistics. 2.7 mental health records were set by law these people cannot purchase a firearm. less than half have been submitted into the background check system. 12 states have submitted 25 records. rhode island, zero.

massachusetts, one. these background checks are not measuring those who may be considered a danger to themselves or other people. some states are concerned about confidentially laws. these are court records. please define for us because i do not think these are health records violations. pennsylvania just recently submitted something. maryland has not submitted any thing. virginia has. maryland has maybe 60 records. host: it is not a reliable source.

we have a question for you. guest: that is true for so many people with mental illness. you see this in youths and in adults. it can make a bad situation worse. many times soldiers have tried putting down a lot of liquor, beer.ple gea it affects their sleep and that can affect their sleep and growth stimulating hormones and sends them in a downward spiral. i would strongly urge anybody to

understand that is not the way to go. get professional help for that. host: joshua in tennessee. caller: good morning. very few people are born with mental illness besides the structural problems we have that creates this disorder. the whole system was foreclosed on. december of 2012. bringing children into a world where the system is not designed to the illusion of scarcity that makes people feel so deprived. guest: i disagree with you.

many people are born with the genetic base for mental illness. we have to understand some of these disorders is not something that comes from stress and strain. many people have troubled childhoods but they grow up to be stronger and better because thrivers, notdrive just survivors. a lot of them grow up and they make a point of doing the right thing. other types have a biological link and when to understand that. it can be some other environmental aspects, too.

a child whose mother drinks heavily may have some problems, too. we cannot wish this away. there are folks that want to pretend this doesn't exist. i can pretend that cancer or diabetes does not exist. it can be made worse by how you live. kantor could be worse if you smoke -- cancer could be worse if you smoke. we have to do so much more research to make sure we get these answers. host: we have a tweet from seadog. guest: a. host: have the talks to the nra about mental health? guest: we need to make a real

commitment to this. look at the way the records are for criminals and people with mental illness. they should not have any guns. some want to take some guns out of the hands of some people. a criminal, a felon with a propensity to violence. i do not want them to have anything, period. nothing. they should not have these things. there is also a lot of crimes and people who may choose something else -- knives, other attacks. of the 30,000 suicides, many

times it is hanging or jumping or other tragic actions. what sort of happens in washington, d.c. and other states is we get into arguments and we think we're doing something. when we pretend it is not there, we have done this for centuries . itces.n them as which we treat them as contagious. that's not what mental illness is. host: we have this on twitter. guest: that is not true.

let's not turn this into political games. if we turn it into one thing or another, i will push that out of the way. you have millions of americans with a problem that is not being treated. i'm not going to take the bait. helpingnt my career people with mental illness get help. people deserve this. "i cannot control my child. we live in fear. is he going to kill himself?" they are not asking what political party you belong to. stop pretending and start

providing the care these families in need. host: hi, too. caller: hi. host: go ahead. caller: hi. i am a proud constituent of yours. i was married to a woman that was diagnosed late with bipolar disorder. her mother had it. she got help and the medication helped her. she would smoke marijuana. that would trigger her mental thomas -- illness. i would be curious as the states and municipalities legalize marijuana if the mental

health issues would increase when that happens. guest: a great point. for some with bipolar illness, the white springs -- wide swings could one for several days. medications can be helpful for that. alcohol and some drugs could impair the ability for medications to work. street drugs are there to affect the brain and emotional swings. it can send a person off. a person can take a drug and begin to erupt some of the

underlying problems. we need to get the word out to people. if you have a problem, do not take those drugs. another problem is smoking. they get a person stabilized and they get discharged and start smoking again and the medication is no longer effective. host: is it heredity? guest: it can be. we do not know all of the elements about this. there are components that could set it off. a person has be very careful to have their diabetes under control. there are biological components

that can set that off. host: scott from illinois. caller: good morning. this is my first time ever calling. good morning, representative murphy. i have been bipolar since 2001. i have had my ups and downs over the years. i was able to get off alcohol and drugs. i just had 11 years sober in january. they are telling us -- i go to group therapy and individual therapy. they are combining them and medicaid said they will dictate

only some many sessions per year that will be covered. i had to cut down on my therapy sessions. it is upsetting me. mental health is still being put under the rug a little bit. the therapy has been a big help. guest: good job on the 11 years of sobriety. the treatments have been effective. that is the kind of thing i want america to know. that's why we are doing the forum today. this will not be a traditional forum. this will be a conversation.

we are effective in some areas but ineffective in others. they begin to look at, "let's cut this budget down and we will save money." when hospitals are close, we see the rates of crime go up. they go to jail. we see police further hands up. what i would going to do -- what are we going to do? and it costs more? if they committed a crime, i and is then that. please get a call that somebody is acting dangers or threatening people.

police may take them to the hospital. physicians have to declare they are at risk of danger. if a judge does not have those findings supported, you might find that person is released. sometimes they take a street drug and that sets them off. the cost in prison is a high cost. it would cost us less to treat that person. host: mike in oklahoma. caller: the relationship between ssri and guns. we have had them and all the school since 1911. we've had school shootings and

ssri's. guest: the idea medication causes violence is not true. host: ssri's? guest: a type of medication. serotonin -- i will give back to you. there have been crimes committed by mentally ill people for centuries and it is not caused by medication. host: we will cover the hearing this morning. we will hear from parents of these children. 's mom."an lanza that went viral. guest: she will be testimony --

testifying from her home. she has a son mike adam lanza -- she has a son like adam lanza. host: we appreciate your time. himes.urn to jim then robert levinson will join us to talk about which districts will be hit hardest by the pentagon cuts. >> 8:31. u.s. home prices jumped in january. a data providers says her home prices rose 9.7% in january. increase inom 8.3% december.

prices rose in all states except delaware and illinois. sales of previously owned homes ticked up in january. inventories of homes for sale fell to a 13-year low. congress is in session today. the plan will be taken not by the house rules committee today and will be voted on by the full house later in the week. an update on the election of a new pope. the vatican is waiting for five more cardinals to reach rome. another handful of cardinals arrived last night.

there are now 110 voting cardinals. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. [video clip] >> one of the things that always grabbed me was a report, a paragraph in the hope consulting report from the focus group where they interviewed a guy, mark k. that sort of sticks with me. i think mark k. actually encapsulated it pretty well, where he said, look, i do not do research because i know that charities are going to do some good. where i put my time in research in things like products. i'll go out and buy a microwave. i'll do research. i do not need to do the research for charities. i think that captures the prevailing ethic right now among donors.

part of my book is a plea to the donor community to rethink it. all charities are not alike. there are good ones and bad ones. there are a lot in the middle. we have got to get money to the best in the breed so that they survive and that the others do not. >> ken stern looks at a world of nonprofits on "afterwards," sunday night at 9:00, this weekend on c-span2. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are back with jim himes, a member of the financial services committee. republicans will put a bill on the floor that will continue to fund the government until september but it will keep sequester in place for the most part. how do you plan to vote? guest: if this is a mechanism to

keep the government running beyond the 27th of this month without a lot of political it.gage, i'm open to t the sequester is still in the re. the sequester is something to create pain for members of congress so they will get together. hopefully it will pass so the government can continue to operate. we do not need a government shutdown fight. host: is the sequester going to cause economic damage? guest: of course it is. the number of jobs lost range from 700,000 to 2 million.

it is not a good thing for the department of defense. it will be detrimental to economically. it happened and it is not moving us in the direction to deal with the core our fiscal problems in this country. i have all these arguments and they are legitimate arguments. the core issue the country needs to address -- unless we get health care spending under control, everything else we are doing is a sideshow. host: there is a piece that said the sequester is moving us in that direction.

that has provided the deficit target -- the deficit to lower. guest: the fact is that starting two years ago, we have made meaningful progress towards getting our balance set. the budget control act reduced spending. there were $600 billion in new revenue. so yes, we have made progress. i do not agree with the math. it has to do with the aging population, the increasing cost of health care, and what that does in the long run. week to have more to do -- we do

have more to do. across-the-board cuts is not the way to go. host: here is the washing times" -- "the washington times" editorial this morning. guest: we will see. this is what makes budget issues so hard. that poll will prove it flat out wrong at the end of the day. if dealing with the budget were a happy thing, we would have done it before. you can increase revenue or you can cut programs.

cut.body says cut, cu;t, host: you are willing to put entitlement reform on the table. are you willing to raise the age for medicare? guest: my party is sometimes guilty of leaving an impression and that is a terrible thing to do. our population is getting older and health care costs are rising faster than inflation. we will reform those programs so they are sustainable for the next 75 years. raising the eligibility age for medicare -- medicare is a health

insurance program. you have taken your healthiest population out of an insurance program. these are people that paid in more than they take out as a proportion. nobody should ever say no changes should happen to those programs. host: james in connecticut. caller: good morning. i'm one of your constituents. is there an agenda at the start of each session? mr. a chance we could shorten the session of congress so we can keep you folks there six days a week to get jobs done.

it seems that congress is not in session enough to get things done. if you were there for six days a week, things would get done. guest: great to hear from you, james. i am not convinced and i don't think the polarization of the congress is attributed to the fact that we are not around enough. we are around plenty. we could be naming federal facilities or dealing with smaller stuff. the issue is more about and on willingness to compromise. that is not going to go away. it has to do with money and

politics. it has to do with gerrymandering and with a tone that was set by newt gingrich years ago. he said the parties should be in full time war. you should go back to your home state and campaign. i do not want to discount the point entirely. i broke with a group that encourages friendships across the aisle. the unwillingness to compromise is a bigger problem. host: ken in san francisco. caller: thank you for taking my call.

wire week ignoring singer -- single payer health care/ they do a good job of taking care of their people for less money than the health-care corporations. pharmaceutical corporations are sticking it to the american people. guest: a very good question from ken. medicare is a single payer system. the administrative costs of medicare are much lower than those costs are within the private health insurance companies. you do not need to advertise. there is real merit on the part of those that point to other countries and say a single payer system is the way to go.

that was too much of a political lift at the time. they mobilized hard prevent meaningful discussion so it never got on the table. host: we have the tweet about medicare and social security. guest: well, yes. i know that americans and all of us want to go to heaven but none of us want to die. it is scary to think these programs, that they do not a

change in an adverse way. they be reformed in a fair way. we will protect those seniors that rely on their social security checked, and we can do that. it probably involves things like means testing. "i do not need my social security check." it involves figuring out how to alter the health-care system so that costs do not spiral. there are so many things we can talk about to reform those programs that do not harm the american people. people should not allow fear of change. host: republican caller. caller: good morning.

thank you for your program. is this problem with social security and medicare more relative to the attitude in the public that they are deserving of these benefits but not willing -- we have not been willing to contribute as much as we believe we deserve. this is a trend throughout society. it is so infectious in all areas of our government and public life, the economy. if we cannot solve this problem and start talking about putting in as much as we're taking out, we cannot solve the problem. thank you. guest: it is important to make

sure that people understand what is going on here. social security is doing just fine today and will do just fine for a while. the same is true for medicare. those programs begin to consume almost all of the federal budget. so yes, they need to be changed. those programs are programs where people put in during their entire working lives. they put into the system their entire working lives. the population has aged and you have fewer people putting in and more people that are beneficiaries.

medicare, same thing. this isn't a 47% takers vs. makers. forget that. that is not long-term sustainable. to get the health-care industry , to get those costs under control. that is how we fix it. host: this is from "usa today.' the bull market turns 4. they say dow nears new heights as fed provides the steroids.

host: do you agree it is time? guest: the fed -- the house has refused to take the advice that says you have two lovers to improve the economy. our bridgesd yesterday. then we put hundreds of thousands of people back to world. the republican majority has said no. they want to cut hard now. the fed is the only factor out

there. on one knee the activities of the fed -- on winding -- unwinding the activities of the fed. a recovery that is tentative. now we are piling the sequester on top of that. now is the time for the fed to reverse course -- when the fed is operating alone, it creates a challenge when they need to the contract to marry. -- contractionary. host: what could happen? guest: we could see inflation.

"interest rates will skyrocket." interest rates are at an all- time low. you cannot be wrong for four years straight. they will need to unwind. if it's not done carefully, interest rates could rise that would put pressure on the recovery. ben bernanke has been doing all that he can. "why are you guys helping?" host: tapping into your wall street experience, he worked at goldman sachs. i want to get your thoughts on this housing story from "the

washington post." host: have you been informed about this? guest: that article is ahead of itself. this will be determined by legislation that we crafts -- recrafts fannie mae and freddie mac. fannie mae and freddie mac will be reformed and shape into something that will be different than what they were in 2006, 2007. the shape will change substantially. we just do not know how.

host: let me read a little more. ed markey unveiled his goals. guest: yeah. that makes more sense. their operations are different than what they were five or six years ago. they contributed to the crash and subsequent bailouts. so they are going to look different. one thing i can be sure of is there will not do that again. host: susan in georgia. caller: thank you for taking my call. with both sides.

compromise is what has gotten us into this problem. you wanted to give home loans for people that did not qualify for a bicycle loan. we all have to suffer for it. the system is making -setting- bar solo that now everybody wants to lower themselves to get any kind of government handout they can get. i met three people on disability because of cigarette smoking. a couple admitted they spent a thousand dollars gambling in las vegas -- $80,000. host: talk about housing.

guest: she has half the story on housing. fannie mae and freddie mac facilitated and industry that was issuing mortgage loans that never should have been written. nobody forced the banks to make the outreaches loans that they made. they did that in the pursuit of profits. wall street was taking up this paper and wrapping it up into bonds. the private sector got out of control. fannie mae and freddie mac facilitated that. seen a bicycle loan. she is right on that point. a lot of people had mortgages

they could not possibly repay. that is something that can never happen again. a new agency is so important. we can spend a lot of time talking that who is at fault. "buy this mortgage." ult?is at fall there will make sure you cannot buy a mortgage that will destroy your life. caller: good morning. louisville. host: all right. caller: thank you, greta. i go back five years. i look at the financial collapse.

i saw people lose their homes and pensions. fast forward five years later. the stock market is almost ready to reach a record. corporations are making money. banks are doing very well. the only ones not doing well are those that build all of this out. what we're getting is sequesters, fiscal cliffs, all of this. guest: george highlights an important problem. the stock market is said high levels. corporations are profitable.

they are more productive than ever before. the people are working harder than ever. there are fewer people at those corporations. that poses when the central issues for us to think about. a very healthy corporate sector is sometimes at odds with the employment of lots of americans. there were thousands of people on the factory floor in my grandfather's day. today, there are seven people attending robots. the question for us is, how do we make sure every american is trained not for that job but for the new job? training our people to have those jobs.

these are highly technical manufacturing jobs. how do we guarantee every high school graduate has a chance at the new economy? host: will go to arizona, independent caller. i have to push the button. caller: good morning. i listen to you guys in the morning. your guests -- the seem like your knowledgeable and talented with all the answers to all the questions. what disappoints me and depresses me is you have to be threatened with sequestration. the president said this is to make people move and do

something. you are adults. i am a nurse. if i had to be treated like a kid, nobody would be alive. if someone says they can loan money to someone that does not qualify and people can buy something that they cannot afford. there ands leave it have the congressman to respond. guest: i share your frustration. i have been watching a lot of people who want to come together on the democratic and republican side to do the deal, the big deal about medicare

reform, social security, defense, taxes, that we know needs to get done what they are prevented from doing so. we are in an interesting moment in american history. two years ago, a group of tea partyers bryan denton we have strong ideological goals and its feeder that way or no way. i understand what it sounds like to hear democrats say that. this is much more problems for speaker john boehner that it is for me. i'm in the minority. he has spent years making deals, legislating, compromising. he wants to do the deal as does the president. the president says you can do the chained cpi. john boehner is being forced to say exactly what he says today, which is not one more penny out of tax benefits for oil companies, not out of tax benefits for oil companies or people who fly private jets. the reason is he has a right

wing which is uncompromising. i know what it sounds like to hear that from a democrat, but that's the reality. it's more problems for john boehner and directed people than for the democrats in the minority, many of whom would like to do the deal. when he asserts control, we will move forward. host: the new york times front page has a story about space tax benefit. guest: it points to something that i really hope we can accomplish, which is aeriform is a reform of our tax code. the government rights text to

medicare and medicaid recipients, social security recipients, and northrop grumman for defense, and it provides tax breaks. if we tell a company you're getting a $10 billion tax break, that's like writing them a check. we should scale back as many of those special tax breaks as possible. the problem, it is as hard to do that as it is to stop writing the checks on the spending side. that i saidcidence the two least popular tax breaks, oil companies, $4 billion per year, the people will fly private jets that to get complicated tax subsidies, but that's an example of this is the other guys stuff that i want cuts. what about the mortgage interest tax deduction? people don't want to talk about that. it's a benefit for a lot of americans. when we get into eliminating tax breaks, and many of them we should do, we get into a nasty fight. people in washington mobilize to

protect those tax breaks and that's a problem. host: janice in atlanta, democrat. caller: good morning. firstg obama's administration, one of the cutbacks he requested was farm subsidized land. it is extremely interesting how things got blown over really quickly. no real issue was done about it. the government is spending billions of dollars in paying people not to use land. i live in georgia. we have a lot of open land down here. people come down to hunt and a lot of this is farm subsidize land. we had a situation where the insurance executive's son shot somebody with a shotgun while

they weren't counting on land that belonged to an insurance lobbyist. -- while they were out hunting. guest: that happens to be a form of direct subsidy that i think is a staggering waste of money. more than just being a waste of money, and we subsidize corn, for example, we make corn syrup, which is in everything and contributes meaningfully to the nation's obesity problem, which contributes to the health care cost increases i keep talking about, we create a lot of problems. you need to hear from me, if you want honesty on this issue, i think that agriculture subsidies are a relic of the past, a waste of money, and they destroy markets. the other thing is i represent fairfield county, connecticut,

where there are not many farms. i have colleagues that would say something very different about agriculture subsidies. host: on twitter -- guest: i tried pretty carefully not to use the language of blame. yes, on both sides of the aisle there are extremists who are not interested in compromise. what that gentleman needs to tell me is one democrat who was taken out by a primary challenge from the far left wing. cannot do it. i could talk about richard lugar. i could talk about michael cassell. i could talk about bob bennett. i could go on and on of mainstream republicans who got blown up by tea party opponents like richard murdock, like todd akin, who went on to than those

in the general election. there are extremists on both sides. the democrats are in the minority right now. derrik sweeney is not taking people out in primaries and therefore is not creating fear for the president. not that the president needs to run a primary again. but the president has put stuff on the table that has enraged his left-wing, but chained cpi, who flirted with increasing the medicare cost. left-wing hated the president for that and yet he did it. it's not happening on the other side. host: you have taken on a new role in the election cycle as the finance chair for the democratic campaign committee in the house. here is the editorial section of the wall street journal this morning --

how are you coordinating with the white house on this? guest: no coordination with the white house on this. i was only asked to do this two weeks ago, so there has not been much activity. my job as finance chair is to help raise the money for the democratic and congressional campaign committee to assist people who are trying to help the democrats to retake the house of representatives and therefore move this town into a more compromising position, meaning willingness to legislate and willingness to run the government. the tea party control of the house of representatives has done untold damage to this country. we are going to feel in the sequester. i will be part of trying to chained that. host: the journal goes on to say

-- guest: you know, it's just wrong. as a matter of practice, there are few mouthpieces as willing to ignore the facts in the guise of a respectable news organization in the editorial page of the wall street journal. i'm surprised they're not embarrassed to write that editorial when we just saw an election cycle where karl rove raised $300 million from donors he would not disclose come when all these groups, like americans for prosperity were out there raising money in the shadows and spending money. the wall street journal could say the president is raising money to push its political

aims, it justifies shame. host: derogate minnesota, independent. caller: good morning. i have a couple comments. new of raised a couple in the last couple statements. i was saying, you seem like a blue dog democrats, pretty much down the middle, seems to be smart, the last couple comments of his lost me. the affordable care act, or obamacare, that was the first time in history, two things have been growing hire, it is health care. first, it's college tuition. we're strapping our kids with the depts. this entitlement or this health care situation, for the first time in history it was not bipartisan. it was just one cited in our past. and it's a pretty major entitlements. so that's one piece of it.

the second piece is you decided to be the finance committee chair for the democratic congressional committee with the leader of that is what surname in florida. guest: the leader is steve israel of new york. host: debbie wasserman schultz is the head of the democratic national committee. caller: ok, so it's two different things. you're not working with her? host: that's right. guest: that's a different organization. caller: that's good, because she's the kool-aid drinker of the left. guest: he asked about health care reform. he's right in one respect, which is that making sure every american has access to health care, not through an emergency room but has access to decent health care, it does not come free. i think in the rich country and a world, that is a goal worth pursuing.

in a country that spends $800 billion per year on defense, security, cia, homeland security, wars, i think we could spend a little to make sure every american has access to health care. i also think that -- and i have been beating chrithis from hard -- if we're serious about the fiscal issues, we're serious about reforming health care. health care reform has any number of measures which are beginning to take effect in reducing the cost of our health- care system. if you want to criticize the health care reform bill, and there are problems with it, is that it probably did not go far enough in reducing the growth in the cost of health care expenses. it's hard to say we should go back to a world where there are millions of americans with no access to health care for their children if accept for to show pinniped -- except for to show up in an emergency repair the bill pay for itself in that we had the honesty to say here's

how we are going to pay for it, of which we had not seen in the last 10 years in government. putting together a system whereby we all contribute to make sure everyone of our fellow americans has access to health care is just the right thing to do. host: dayton, ohio, a democrat. caller: hello. i was pondering why i keep hearing about entitlements and stuff. congress and senator's lead by example? their entitlement is their salary. they need to take a pay cut. and their pensions, give them up, just like all the people have to. guest: chuck, i have voted against any pay increase for congress in the four and 1/4 years since i have been here, because i agree. when the rest of the american people are barely hanging on to their jobs, congress has no business giving itself a raise. that's the way i have voted since i have been here.

a lot of misinformation is out there about congressional benefits packages. we pay into social security just like everybody else. we don't have permanent health- care when we retire or leave this place. we do have a pension. after you have been here five years, it begins to vest. that is the way the world used to being. most corporations today, most private sector folks don't happen that pension. if the government needs to talk about shifting people over to 401k plan and iras, that's a conversation i'm willing to have. at the end of the day, our deficit is not caused by overpaying congressmen. we need to stay ruthlessly focused. you can pay us almost zero and you could barely move the needle on the deficit. we need to stay focused on health care costs if we are serious about addressing our situation. host: one last call from charles in ohio, republican.

you are on the air with the congressmen. caller: hello. i was wondering if the congressmen -- i think there was the question that if the president would be a little more respected by people on the right if he would stop vilifying people who do good and every now and then if he talked to inner- city people, folks really having trouble now, talk about staying in school and don't have children until they are married, that if you had a two parent household and you would decrease your chance of being in poverty, and to take care of and support your children and stuff and broken families and stuff where we are having so much trouble in the inner city now.

and blacks and whites, both sides. if someone would try to speak to that. we need to say be a lot better parents and be more responsible, that would go long way toward helping us get rid of poverty and stuff that we have in these areas. host: ok, charles. guest: thank you for highlighting that. charles makes a really critical point. i come down here to d.c. from connecticut and we deal with really big and tough problems on energy, climate change, health care, which we talk a lot about this morning, on all sorts of issues. if we as families were better about living in a more responsible fashion, the problems that are huge in d.c. would become smaller. if we were all focused on energy conservation, the climate change and energy policy problems would be smaller. ,f we were all heldalthier

our health care problems would be a lot smaller. if we all took time to be smart about saving money rather than running up credit cards, our financial problems would be smaller. there's a temptation to think, particularly on my side of the aisle, that all problems can be solved in washington. the reality that all of us as fathers, mothers, families, communities, in churches, synagogues, if we all committed ourselves to living better and more sustainable and more responsible if, washington would have to do a lot less. host: jim himes serving his third term, member of the financial services committee. thanks for joining us. next, we turn our attention to a new report out by bloomberg government about the top 10 congressional districtss with the most to lose in the across- the-board pentagon spending cuts. first, a news update from c-span radio.

>> jonica 17 eastern. the chicago sun-times reports that penny pritzker is anxious to sign on as president obama's commerce secretary and maybe in the process of signing an ethics agreement enabling her to do so. she is worth an estimated $1.8 billion. she is an executive who runs our own investment firm promises on the chicago board of education, led's fundraising for president obama's campaign. she withdrew her nomination years ago because of obligations to our family, but now her friends say she wants the job. there's a report paul ryan q is considering changes to medicare to kick in four americans younger than 56. in the previous budgets, those 55 and older were exempted from his plan to turn medicare into a voucher program. republicans have been saying for two years that their plans would

not affect medicare coverage for anyone older than 54. the united nations security council will meet behind closed doors this morning to talk about north korea. this is just hours after the u.s. and the the north's strongest ally, china, reached an agreement on sanctions against north korea for its nuclear tests last month. north korea is now falling to cancel the 1953 ceasefire that ended the korean war. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. [video clip] >> one of the things that i don't mentioned in the book that always grant me was a report -- a paragraph in the whole consulting report, a focus group where they interviewed a guy named mark k. i think he encapsulated the mentality pretty well when he said, "i don't do research

because i know that charities are going to do some good. where i put my time in research is things like products, like around buying a microwave." i think that captures the prevailing ethics right now among donors. part of my book right now is a plea to the community to rethink that. all charities are not alike. we have to get money to the best so that they survived and that the others don't. >> with little accountability, our measure of effectiveness,ken stern looks at the world of nonprofits, sunday night at 9:00, this weekend on c-span2. >> washington journal continues. host: robert levenson of bloomberg government called with a new report looking at defense contracts spending by

congressional district. this report focuses solely on defense contracts spending. how do you define that? guest: that's right. it's the money that the department of defense spends on basically goods and services. it's not evenly divided between goods and services. somewhere around $315 billion per year. host: how did you gather the data? guest: and bloomberg government, in just all the contract data that is reported to the federal government. then we manipulate it, clean it up, and we have tools for extracting the data in various ways. of the ways you can extract data is by congressional district. host: we don't really have a good number on how many federal contractors across all agency there are in the government. do we have a good handle on the moneys being spent on different contacting? guest: we don't have a good handle on the number of people that are actually working as defense contractors. even the department of defense

andy vihn secretary gates talk about the did not have a good number. in terms of the numbers of dollars we spend, we know how much money is spent, because all of these contracts are reported to a system. there are some classified contract to deal with intelligence work and other things which are not reported, but the rest is basically reported and we have a pretty good handle on that. there's 140,000 companies that do business with the federal government and we know who they are. host: what are the headlines out of the report? guest: the most interesting headline is counterintuitive, but the democratic districts, those districts represented by democratic members of congress, to get a little bit more of defense contract dollars than the republican districts. host: a look at the top 10. here they are for our viewers. you can see the numbers and the members of congress.

two republicans and the other 78 -- other 8 are democrats. guest: in the top 10. a lot of this is industrial stuff and tends to go to urban areas where there's more industrial capability and those tend to be more democratic districts. host: what type of defense contracting spending is going on in these districts? guest: it is interesting. in most cases, the big contract dollars are not with the installations. the installations to spend money on contracts for services to the base. like the first one, it was a surprise, because a representative clay is not a big voice on defense issues and he does not sit on the defense committee, and he has a huge amount of boeing manufacturing, aircraft manufacturing in his district. he's in a pretty good buy, because with sequestration, a lot of his money comes from saudi arabia to purchase fighter jets for the saudi air force, but it goes through our department of defense. so he does not have to worry about that money being cut.

but there's other boeing stock that could be cut. host: what about jim moran? guest: he's the most vulnerable. his is defense services. it's not a big manufacturing or things like a big aircraft. it is information technology services. the biggest company in his district is a translation service for the department of defense. he has a wide variety of companies all headquartered very near washington and doing services kind of businesses. host: some others? guest: the top republican is in fort worth tester, the 12th congressional district. mccomas hall lockheed martin, 95% of all the dollars spent in her district, it's a blow over $90, that's all lockheed. a good portion of that is the f- 35 fighter jet, which is the largest program in the defense department. these are twas defense dollars low. charter for the big pieces of hardware like the f-35 or

submarines or ships, or its for services for the department of defense. host: the report puts on its head the perception that republicans protect the pentagon more than democrats. guest: there's a perception that the republicans have been more protective of the defense department historical. i don't think it's necessarily because of spending and somehow if spending moves to democratic districts that would change. what you are seeing now more with republicans is a real focus on austerity, on cutting budgets, on restricting the government and many more republicans than in the past have been willing to talk about the pentagon needs to be trimmed as well. host: how will the sequester impact the defense contracting spending? guest: sequester impacted very much. basically, for the department of defense, it's about 7.9% or 7.8% on the discretionary side of spending that is cut. across-the-board, so it will affect the contracts.

the department of defense as it does not want to break contracts, which it can do, but it pays penalties. so it doesn't want to. host: carter big penalties? guest: they can in some cases. if the pentagon terminate the contract for convenience of the government, there is a negotiation between the contractor to say these are costs including profits and here's the money we have are spent and we are entitled to it prepares a negotiation process within the government and the contractors to decide what legitimate expenses are permitted there's a disagreement, they have a special court that deals with it and they can appeal. in a lot of cases the government may happen ability to scale back the amount of money they will spend on a particular contract and we will buy one or two less fighter jets this year so they don't have direct contact but it will scale back the spending and then they don't have to pay the penalty. host: we are talking about bloomberg government posing new report on defense contracts spending. this is what they have found out.

so all 436 members if you count the district of columbia get defense contracts ending. guest: yes. i think there's a district in brooklyn that only gets about $300,000. this is 2012 data. these are what we call crime contract produce of the contracts of companies directly doing business with the government. there's a lot of subcontracting work. means lockheed build a fighter jet, it gets paid by the program and then it in turn pays 60% to various subcontractors to make various parts of the jet. you can take that down many levels. as the guy who makes a part of

the f-35 and then there's another guy who makes the rubber for tires. host: you made this point in your report -- what do you make that connection? guest: it's interesting to see how the money flows. the primary reason for a lot of this is that the democratic districts tend to be more in the urban districts. that's where a lot of these companies are located. a lot of republican districts are rural districts and there's not a lot of defense business and manufacturing in those districts. some of the military bases are in areas that tend to be more republican. but not as many big contract dollars flow from the military bases. our services, but most of its personal dollars. salaries of the men and women in uniform or the civilian defense employees. those employees, the civilians are going to feel the impact of sequestration. the military personnel are exempt.

host:greg in hindsville, alabama, republican. you are up first for robert levinson. caller: thanks for taking my call. i am in the area that was no. 6 for the impact. in hindsville, per square inch we have more rocket scientist than anywhere in the world. it's one of the most dedicated counties in the world and in the country. in madison county there's 350,000 people. 41 cows and will be directly impacted. six jobs will be associated the -- associated with every job impacted. i keep hearing that we're not going to feel the pain, that it will not be a big impact. but it will be in barnesville, alabama. -- in huntsville, alabama.

my wife and i are both business owners. this will directly impact a lot of people's lives in the community. one thing that irritates me the most is a lack of leadership. i keep hearing republican and democratic. we're all americans. the federal government's job is to federalus. host: we have to leave it there and get guest: a responseg. guest: that area gets a lot of missile and space activity. he's right. there will be pain. in terms of the overall number for sequestration in the overall economy is not a huge number. but then it's concentrated in certain areas like hindsville, alabama. defense contractors will lay people off as their contracts are reduced. -- hunstville.

federal employees will get 22 days of unpaid leaves, which is one of the bears salary being cut for the rest of the year. host: house republicans want to put a bill on the floor by thursday that would keep the sequester in place by giving the pentagon and veterans administration's some flexibility. what does that do with sequester? guest: with the veterans administration, it does not do much. veterans is basically exempt from the sequester. for the department of defense, it would give it flexibility to make some strategic cuts. defense officials have said at this point we only have seven months left in the fiscal year. even if they have the flexibility, it does not help them that much, because they have to do so much in such a short time. they've got to reduce the spending by the end of the fiscal year. the president has said he does not want that flexibility, because he does not want to acknowledge that everything has to come from cuts. he still looking for compromise that. republicans are not accepting

that right now. we still seem to be at an impasse. host: on twitter -- guest: there always are problems with contracts. but something's really cannot be done by troops. some of the services, they talk about world war ii troops peel potatoes and work conditions. the troops don't build weapons systems. a lot of that is building a 35, that's private industry that does that. the u.s., task to go to industry to build various pieces of equipment. there is the dispute about some of these jobs that could be done by soldiers or federal government employees. depending on how you look at the cost, it's often hard to tell there's a real dispute, because federal employees have good retirement benefits and sent to have a longer life time cost. contractors can have a much higher up-front cost in terms of the actual salary? they earn on a day-to-day basis. host: mike in wisconsin,

independence. caller: i just got a question that i'm not trying to be sarcastic. who is going to clean the buildings and scrub toilets? host: you mean it sequester happens? caller: yes, would that not be federal contractors who do all that sort of stuff? guest: absolutely, it is federal contractors that do those kinds of services in most cases. when i worked in the pentagon, a lot of that is done through special companies that employ handicapped or developmentally disabled people. they work as picking up the trash and things in the pentagon and other places. they are federal contracts and they will be hit. somebody still has to take out the trash. instead of twice a week it will be one day a week or things like that. host: on twitter --

guest: hawaii is a case where there is a lot of money that is associated with military installation. you've got pearl harbor and a beale air force base. the army has an installation. so why he has a lot of money coming to it. i don't know how much you have heard from the delegation. you had senator inouye who was tear but then the provisions committee and he was pretty vocal about this before he passed away. he was a strong voice against the defense cuts, always considered really hawkish in terms of spending money on the department of defense. host: new york, g democratic caller yorkreg. greg in new york. caller: the overreliance on contractors, something that was

from imperialial, something that leads to a decline. if you look at the line graph of defense spending and the u.s. debt and deficit, they plot almost identically. i was wondering when that bubble will collapse? host: you are talking about a bubble in defense spending? caller: yes, if you look at the line graph of defense spending historically, american defense spending it is pretty parabolic and i wonder when the bubble will collapse? host: so defense spending keeps going up historical in, he is saying it is an economic bubble. does it burst? guest: defense spending tends to

go up during wartime and then it comes down. we have ended the war in iraq and we are getting out of afghanistan slowly, so defense spending does tend to come down. historically, defense spending goes up during a war. we are in one of those times called the drawdown. if you look at korea, vietnam, the cold war, defense spending came down by as much as 1/3 and it usually takes 10 years to do? . host: kevin -- calvin in kentucky. caller: i have a question on the military. i am a retired coal miner. i have killed myself in the coal mines. the sequestered, they say it is not point to hurt people. i have three granddaughters that are just starting a headstart program. it's gone to cut that out.

what are they going to do about that? just like social security, they want to take billions of dollars out of social security, and for what? iran or somewhere. they're not putting a dime back. host: those are two different topics for another day. we are talking about defense contracts spending this morning. bloomberg government is out with a new report on that. ann next in alabama, a democrat. caller: i am a widow and my husband was in the military and got killed. i want to know what is going to happen as far as entitlements, as far as us women. host: again, that's another topic for another day. sorry about that. sheila in connecticut, independent. if we are talking about defense contracts spending. and we have a fourth line for those in the military and

defense industry. 585-3883. we want to hear from you as well. caller: good morning. i have a statement and question. i feel that not another penny needs to be spent on defense. we are the superpower. we have more than enough weapons and fighter jets for what we need to accomplish for i don't know how many years. also, what annoys me most is when we have the lottery and all those millions are given out, someone 1 $1 billion the other day on the powerball, then walk away with $683,000. where does the rest go? i ask the politicians and all they tell me, in the general fund. we don't need that. put that towards the people in social security and medicare. forget about defense spending. it's only for the defense contractors. keep the people going. host: you have some spots,

robert? guest: sheila is getting at an important point. it's time to debate what the proper level of defense spending is. a lot of money does go to contractors, but it does go to the pay of the troops and military retirees and things like that. but we do have to have a discussion about what is the proper level. there is a legitimate discussion to be had about how much money to spend as we're coming down from a war. i don't think anybody thinks it can go down to zero, but it is a legitimate debate to have. historically, in periods like this it has gone down by as much as host: 1/3 on twitter -- guest: well, i guess what i would say is it is important. these are jobs and does affect the overall unemployment rate. defense contract intends to be

concentrated in urban areas. most of these jobs, a lot of them are really good jobs, well- paid jobs, high skilled workers. cutting back on that, there's going to be an effect on unemployment rates. host: andrew in maine, republican. what's the name of your town? caller: bodine. i worked at an ironworks company in maine. i was wondering about the contracts for the ddg 1000. i want to know what they see happening? guest: they do a lot of navy shipbuilding up there. those contracts, like everything else, are going to get looked at. those tend to be good contract with long lead times and things like that. the navy just signed a new contract yesterday for a combat ship. so these contracts will go forward they may scale back the buy or the pace.

they will not cut out the programs completely. host: on twitter -- bill in new jersey, democrat. caller: the medical contracts when our personal comeback for morris, they go to the va hospital, these medical contracts, do they go directly to drug companies and there's a big problem with folks like myself who have to take a particular kind of medicine. i think the prices are very inflated, but i really don't know. host: you are just talking about in general, not talking about defense contractor and? caller: well, i did not know, because i got on to the program late. i was wondering when guys come back from wars.

got to have a specific kind of drug and you get that drug directly from the drug companies or is it through a contractor? guest: there is the military, which provides health care for about 10 million people. that's military, active duty, their family members, and retirees and their family members. there's also the veterans administration. in both cases, the contract for a lot of these medical services and they buy drugs. sometimes there's a middleman or distributor. they go and buy drugs the same way. the va has the ability to negotiate drug prices, and like medicare, which is prohibited from doing that. the va is getting a better price on some of these things in some cases. those drugs are not manufactured by the government, so they have to buy them from the company that makes them. host: on twitter -- ofst: well, there's a lot

discussion along those lines. the idea is fighting another big ground war like we did in iraq or afghanistan. the military really does not want to do that again and they have talked about a strategy released in january of last year, they talk about not wanting the size of the forced to do that again. so there's a lot of discussion about the kind of enemies warfighting and the kind of technology. maybe a lot of the big heavy equipment off is not suited. and there's things like space capabilities or cyber capabilities or special operations that maybe should receive more emphasis. host: jeff is in tampa, florida, in the army. caller: since we were going to reduce the military in a time of war, since the cannot pre-plan these things, i wonder if they will reenact the draft so they can build up the military during that conflict. we have not been able to plan any of the wars we ever had. i am concerned about our future. thank you. host: why are you in tampa,

florida? caller: i'm an army reservist. i have almost 30 years of military service between active and reserve. i assigned to a unit in orlando, florida. host: thanks for the call. guest: first, thank you for your service, jeff. we all appreciate that. in terms of a draft, we still have selective service. everybody -- every male was 18 or older has to register. we could reinstitute a draft, the radically. i don't think it's a realistic possibility. they are talking about cutting the size of the force. everybody likes the all- volunteer force. one of the interesting debates they are having now, with opening up positions for women in combat, there is discussion about whether or not women will need to register for selective service as well. that should be an interesting discussion to see go forward as the debate continues.

host: another phone call in florida. rich, democrat. caller: i am concerned. the thing that bothers me over the years is defense contracts developing weapons systems or an airplane, the contract overruns and its five times what the original contract was and the government goes along and pays it. why is that allowed? is there any penalty for the person who cops out from the contract? good point a very and other are often cost overruns in a lot of these contracts. these days, with the budget coming down, the government is getting much more aggressive about these kinds of things. there's a new contract with boeing for a tanker. it's a fixed price contract.

have been overruns and boeing has to eat the cost overruns. they're running into the hundreds of millions of dollars. the government says you promised it at that price and that's what we're going to pay. there are cases where the government is being more discerning about that, forcing contractors to eat some of the costs. on the other hand, sometimes the f-35 fighter jet was first conceived in 1996. technology has changed a lot. sometimes estimating what these things are going to cost in the beginning gets a little tough and in some cases nobody can anticipate the cost. i would say the government overall is being a tougher taskmaster on a lot of these things and looking to the contractors to eat more and more these costs because people are getting tired of the government constantly paying for the overrun. host: on twitter -- guest: there have been some moves to renegotiate on the

pentagon only but and there are others particularly in the administration but say they want to undo this thing but i'm not really willing to just absorb the pentagon of these cuts. some of the republicans are more concerned about the pentagon, but the democrats a we don't like any of this and we want to renegotiate all of this. and the president has said that as well. i don't think it's just about the pentagon. but the pentagon is the biggest bill payer in the sequestration. so there's a lot of attention being focused on it. host: we're talking about the bloomberg government posing new report on defense contracts spending where they found the top tender's 642012 defense contracts spending included eight democrats and two republicans. chris in jamaica, new york, independent. caller: my question concerned the outsourcing of contracts overseas. you covered how we breakdown the contracts across the united states. i was wondering what percentage

of contracts are outsourced overseas? i know than it supports the economies overseas more than ours. i was just curious about that. also, you mentioned this morning about the f-35. are -- i spot the f-22 was going to be the last land jet -- manned jet aircraft moving forward. host: got it. guest: the outsourcing contracts overseas, a lot of the support for our bases overseas go to foreign companies. everything from picking up the trash at a base in germany is going to a foreign company. are some big foreign companies. bae is the largest one that does a lot of business and sells a lot of weapons. they sell more to the u.s. than to the british military even though they are british company and they have a u.s. space

division. there is some of that. some of the subcontracting work may be outsourced overseas. i cannot really track that kind of thing. a question about the f-35, the f-22 was the last fighter jets that we completed. the air force purchased 187 of those. but the f-35 is a man aircraft. it's a process of making an unmanned version that we may see a some point in the future because the aircraft will be bought. the last scheduled buy is in 2024. you may see it go to an unmanned versions in the not so distant future. host: in pittsburgh and in the army, troy. caller: i was calling to talk about when clinton was in for every entrance remand there were eight statistical people, one works in the army and seven are in the defense contract.

now they have gotten rid of those seven contractors that are there to help the maintenance guys do their job. now we are crippled, logistically. bae, who you were just talking about, is an american company that merged with them. i just cannot believe they have done this, but they have crippled the united states army. when we went into iraq, most of the equipment we fought against did not have people manning the equipment, so we ran through it like it was nothing. when we went to the afghanistan, these are thugs, not soldiers. guest: i don't know if i would agree that we have crippled ourselves logistically. the contractors to provide a lot of logistic support. occasionally there are issues with that. but i am not really aware of future complaints that the

forces are crippled and not able to do their combat mission. it's always an issue of the contractors being dependent on them and for how many of them should you deployed for? if you replace them with military personnel, which we try to do sometimes, the military personnel are expensive as well and often their missions are very critical in the front-line combat positions. so it's a real question of where do we put the contractors and how much do we rely on them? i don't no. i agree that things have been crippled. host: there might is a former marine in evansville, indiana, independent. caller: why is it contractors get paid such large amounts, between $100,000.100 $50,000 for service overseas when the average soldier or mean only makes $38,000? guest: it is hard to say. contractors do in many cases get pretty good salaries. but they can be terminated very quickly. sometimes you have to look at the lifetime cost.

they don't always have all the benefits. they do get some tax breaks for serving overseas. again, this is a constant area of debate as to how much contractors are charging and how much they should be paid. i don't know that there's any agreement, but constantly comes up as an issue. host: richard and misery, a democrat. missouri. caller: when i was in the service we did our own cooking and so forth. we did it for patriotic purposes, not for the money. we have a mercenary army now. we have a bunch of white elephants sitting up there and it costs a billion dollars, working for nothing. guest: he mentions the idea of soldiers doing kp or kitchen duty. that used to be done by soldiers. those were draftees soldiers in a lot of cases and we did not pay them very much. now we have an all volunteer force and we want to provide

those men and women in uniform will volunteer a pretty good package of salaries and benefits. so it does not make sense to pay people in uniform to do some of these jobs that you can pay a contractor and probably pay a contractor a lot less in cases like that to do those jobs and save your soldiers in uniform for the really critical combat jobs and service in dangerous areas where you don't always want to put contractors. host: on twitter -- guest: these are areas that are really under discussion, as part of the overall global footprint. we still have a lot of forces in japan, a lot of forces in germany, significant forces in korea. a lot of people to think maybe we need to scale back some of these commitments. there have been various studies about pulling back out of particularly germany raping there's not much of a threat in europe. some of it's a legacy from the cold war. there's a lot of discussion along those lines.

it's not clear how much money you would say if if if you bought those soldiers back home. if you still have to pay the soldiers. some of the support costs overseas are paid by those foreign governments. but this is an area being discussed. host: duncan in ohio, republican. caller: there are two things i want to say. first, i want to ask a if you are familiar with the industrial military complex and explain to the audience how it relates to defense spending. there were callers who asked questions that had nothing to do with the topic this morning and that shows people are not familiar with this sort of thing as much as. do you agree? guest: the military-industrial complex, president eisenhower as he left office, he talked about be where the military-industrial complex. what he is talking about is the alliance between the defense department and the industries that supply it and members of

congress and lobbyists and people like that. that is certainly something to be concerned about. there are members of congress who have interests in particular weapons systems because they are manufactured in their district and they also get donations from weapons companies. sometimes it's not clear they are really buying the stuff that's most important for our national security, but really helping out special interest. this is a constant area of discussion. when you are spending on the defense budget that over half a trillion dollars, there's corn to be a lot of people interested in that money. we have to be careful that we are spending the right money for the right reasons and not spending just because if it's helping out a particular industry or region but rather is something the critical for our national defense. host: will in columbia, tennessee, independent. caller: good morning, greta. i appreciate c-span. i was just thinking about this. i am thinking about defense as

well as the analysis for the money that's going into the defense program. i was thinking about how obama came out during the newtown incident where the children were taken out by automatic weapons and how much money goes into all this. relate that to what is going on with the drones that are going overseas now that are being used and million-dollar warheads that can go to the afghans or iraq or even iran, which has already threatened the united states. the sad thing about this whole situation is there's quite a bit of hypocrisy going on. who is taking care of the defense spending? in the days of jesus christ, he said to the political leaders as well as the religious leaders

and even the military leaders in rome, he simply said, "how can you escape the damnation of california is coming?" we don't realize it, but we have great powers coming to life and they're getting ready to look at us as an easy candidate for overtaking us. guest: i don't know that anybody would say the u.s. is an easy candidate to be overtaken. we still have a dominant military power in the world. we spend more than the next 17 countries combined on national defense. most of those 17, with the exception of countries like russia and china, our allies of the united states. even with the cuts that are coming, we will still be the dominant military power of in the world's. we are the only superpower that has aircraft carriers that can go all over the world and corporate we still have a nuclear deterrent which is substantial. despite what people say about some of these cuts, we have to be careful to not overhype them.

the u.s. will continue to remain the dominant u.s. power for quite some time. host: tammy works for a federal contractor. caller: my husband is part of the military readiness mission. my husband and my brother, we are five generation military family. the problem that i am seeing is that in two weeks my husband will be furloughed. so these cuts will affect the training and readiness of the military, which will at some point wekaen the military -- we aken the military. i keep hearing we are large power and that is true. but if we start cutting deeply

into the readiness program and things like that, it will have a serious impact. my brother has already been laid off. he builds military training facilities all over the united states. he works for a subcontractor that does that. he has already been laid off. so we're getting into dangerous territory with our nation. guest: i think jamee brings up a really good point and it says along with the sequester and the amount of the cuts, one of the real problems is the across-the- board nature of the cuts. -- tammy. to talk about readiness, which is a function of operations and maintenance. , under the sequester,sequest those are where the biggest cuts are coming from, which does affect readiness. this is one of the reasons a lot of people object to the across- the-board nature. we have talked about efforts to